


skylines and turnstiles (you're not in this alone)

by ftmpeter



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: .. kind of?, Alternate Universe - No Sparrow Academy (Umbrella Academy), Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Character Study, Gen, Good Sibling Vanya Hargreeves, Mental Health Issues, Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, Platonic Relationships, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Esteem Issues, but it's nice, it doesn't fix everything, it's the comfort you get when you're next to someone you care about, such as
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:06:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25951117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ftmpeter/pseuds/ftmpeter
Summary: "What makes someone a good person?"It’s a silly question, meant for philosophical debates between pompous college students and writing prompts in sixth grade English, but Five cannot shake the feeling that it is one that will haunt him for a very, very long time. He does not mean to ask it - but then again, he does not mean for a lot of things to happen.Vanya is quiet. Five watches her stare down at her fingernails, studying them like they hold the secrets to the universe."I think," she finally says, so softly he has to strain to hear it, "that I don’t know."If it was anyone else saying that, Five would scoff, roll his eyes, sarcastically thank them for contributing so much to the conversation. But it isn’t anyone else. It’s Vanya. Sweet, mild-mannered Vanya, who has also directly and indirectly caused the end of the world two separate times. Out of all his siblings, she is probably the only one who understands what he is truly asking, and cannot answer it either.How do I know I’m a good person?-Five struggles with who he is after everything. Vanya is there.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & Vanya Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy) & Everyone
Comments: 11
Kudos: 129





	skylines and turnstiles (you're not in this alone)

**Author's Note:**

> soooo people still devastated by s2 how are y'all doing
> 
> taking place in an au where the sparrow academy does not exist and the hargreeves get to, you know, not deal with that, this fic is more about five's internal struggle with ptsd - because let's be real here, that boy would most definitely have it after all he's been through - as well as feelings of guilt and self-hatred. however, i've always loved five and vanya's dynamic, so i couldn't help but explore it a little more here too. basically, if you like things not completely heartbreaking but still tinged with sadness, read this
> 
> (strictly platonic. they are siblings. thank you)

It’s half past four in the morning when Five makes his way to the roof.

That is not unusual. Ever since they all got back from their stint in the past, he hasn’t been able to sleep. Sleep is a faraway concept, an elusive beast that he just can’t catch. It taunts him during the day, leaves his eyelids drooping and head nodding, but refuses to take him in. Refuses to give him even the slightest of reprieves. Which means he has to seek peace elsewhere.

So no, it is not unusual for Five to be on the roof at odd hours of the night.

What _is_ unusual, however, is that Vanya is, too.

He jolts back when he sees her silhouette, dark against the light of the moon. She sits near the edge, one leg propped up so that her arm rests on the knee. It’s a beautiful picture, and if Five was more artistically inclined, he might take one. He isn’t, though, so he doesn’t.

"Vanya?"

The girl in question jumps, turning her head at the sound of his voice.

"Five?"  
  
"What are you doing out here?" He asks before she can, walking over to where she is and sitting down. Now that he’s closer, he can spot all the telltale signs of someone who is clearly exhausted - the tremors, the stifled yawns, the circles under eyes, the empty gazes and slumped shoulders.

"Can’t sleep," she explains, a faint, tired smile tugging at her lips. "You don’t own this place, do you?"

Five blinks. "I don’t suppose I do."

"Good."

They lapse into a comfortable silence, punctuated only by their breathing. Five looks out at the horizon, at the stars twinkling in the jet black sky. For a reason he can’t quite discern, they make him feel small. Insignificant.

"What makes someone a good person?"

It’s a silly question, meant for philosophical debates between pompous college students and writing prompts in sixth grade English, but Five cannot shake the feeling that it is one that will haunt him for a very, very long time. He does not mean to ask it - but then again, he does not mean for a lot of things to happen.

Vanya is quiet. Five watches her stare down at her fingernails, studying them like they hold the secrets to the universe.

"I think," she finally says, so softly he has to strain to hear it, "that I don’t know."

If it was anyone else saying that, Five would scoff, roll his eyes, sarcastically thank them for contributing so much to the conversation. But it isn’t anyone else. It’s Vanya. Sweet, mild-mannered Vanya, who has also directly and indirectly caused the end of the world two separate times. Out of all his siblings, she is probably the only one who understands what he is truly asking, and cannot answer it either.

_How do I know I’m a good person?_

Five sighs. He has thousands upon thousands of memories stored in his mind, yet only a select few keep repeating. Perhaps they’re not even memories. Perhaps they’re fragments of all the timelines he left behind, broken shards of what could have been, _should_ have been. Or perhaps they’re simply dreams, hallucinations induced by spending forty-five years in the apocalypse. Regardless of their basis in reality, Five sees them speed past him like a roll of film.

The blood is the most difficult to look at.

Blood.. blood is a fascinating thing. Before his numerous colossal fuck-ups, when the body he resides in actually matched his age, Five found the idea of making someone bleed unappealing. Not gross, but unappealing. What was the point, he thought, of making a mess that does not need to be made?

That was also before he ever got sent out on a hit, though.

_Red splattered on walls. Red on his face, his hands, his clothes. Red dripping down surfaces, staining carpets, ruining furniture. Red like paint, like passion, like psychosis._

It’s not that he can’t stomach the sight of blood. It’s that he can too _well_.

So many times had Five stared down the barrel of a gun, holding someone else’s life in the curve of his finger on the trigger. So many times had he detached himself from the end result, stepping over bodies with the same indifference one might possess when subjected to a particularly boring lecture. It was a survival tactic, in a way. Because the Commission did not run on emotion. Emotion was a flaw to be hidden, to be suppressed. And if Five had ever, _ever_ allowed himself to recognize that those he killed were real people instead of just another job to carry out, the shame and the guilt would have been overwhelming. He would have broke.

The irony that he broke anyway is not lost on him.

_A crazed laugh, bubbling up in his throat alongside the taste of metallic. A deranged, almost insane laugh at the weight of the axe in his hands and the carnage left in his wake._

There are two things that Five will never tell his siblings. The first is simple - while the rest of them were given weeks, months, _years_ to find their way around the 1960’s and process what had happened to them, Five got fourteen days. Fourteen days of running on nothing but coffee, adrenaline, fear and panic attacks and breakdowns. Fourteen days and three different apocalypses. Sure, he dealt with it. He didn’t have a choice in the matter. But that doesn’t change the fact that that trauma alone could probably fund a therapist for life.

The second is why he no longer sleeps.

_Bullet holes littering his fragile frame. Gasps for air making his lungs burn, eyes water. Breathing solely because of dumb luck, dumb luck and fate’s twisted sense of humor. After all, who is he if not the last one standing?_

How is he supposed to explain that if he hadn’t acted fast enough, they would all be dead in a decade not meant for them? How is he supposed to explain that when it comes to his family, morals go out the window? That morals, ethics, the human conscience, none of it matters when it’s about ensuring their survival? And once that’s done.. what’s his purpose? What’s he good for?

Five realizes, then, that he never responded to Vanya. 

"That makes two of us," he murmurs, leaning his head on her shoulder.

They stay like that until the sun rises.


End file.
